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Rose Lalonde considered herself to be a rational being above all else. This was a lie, naturally, but a comforting one, the falsehood that allowed her to maintain the illusion of cool, content control over her life. This delicate falsehood was now under siege by what was the most potent destructive force Rose had witnessed in her short life.
“Well…” Jade Harley croaked as she waved the smoke away from her face, “I guess that’s why grandpa always said to use an extra measure of saltpeter for that trick!” Jade giggled her little squirrelish giggle, wiping the soot off of her glasses and beaming proudly at her creation. Rose’s mother, infamously tidy in nature, looked down at the makeshift firework and pursed her lips.
Then she ruffled Jade’s hair affectionately. “I made the same mistake when I was your age, dear.” Ms. Lalonde confided in a warm tone that Rose could not help but think of as unfairly sincere. Rose bit her lip, breathed through her nose, and forced the feelings to still; overwhelmed, nervous, and a little bit excited was one thing, but Rose Lalonde was not about to feel jealous of someone getting attention from her mother! Goodness.
“I liked the blue swirl.” Rose said, a few seconds too late to be a natural part of the conversation. Jade beamed as if given a desperately needed organ anyway. Doing her best to ignore the grinding, guilty feeling in her gut, Rose sheepishly ducked back down. “Ah, do you like milk in your hot chocolate Jade? Mother, shall you be joining us?”
The genuine surprise on her Mother’s face hurt Rose, a bit, and she made another promise to try and be a little less defensive with the woman in the future. Thirtieth time’s the charm.
“Certainly, Rose, though then I really have to get back to work.” Ms. Lalonde looked positively cheerful as she slipped a silver flask out of her lab coat pocket and poured a liberal amount of Irish into the cocoa. “This smells heavenly, dear.”
“Thank you so much Rose!” Jade used her ‘indoor excited voice’ as she gleefully plopped miniature marshmallows into the warm chocolate. “I haven’t had any since…” A brief pause, like the noise tectonic plates make when moving. “…well not for a while! Don’t you want any Rose?”
“I prefer mine straight, thanks.” Rose said sardonically, sitting to the other side of Jade and trapping the poor girl between two titans of passive aggression. They sipped, Jade noticed, in parallel. “Do you have any idea when you will be able to move here on a more permanent basis, Jade?”
“Not really.” Jade admitted, “But it can’t be that long, right? I mean I grew up in a US territory so all of this stuff must just be a formality.”
As they chatted, neither girl noticed the guilty, stricken look on Ms. Lalonde’s face.
---
“So…” Three cups of cocoa later, Ms. Lalonde had retired to the laboratory leaving Jade and Rose alone. Jade tapped her fingers on the saucer and tried to ride out the mild rush she was feeling from all that sugar as unobtrusively as possible. “…I have never had one of these before! What do we do next?”
Rose grew so quiet at this admission that Jade was briefly afraid she had done something wrong. This fear was quelled by the gentle pressure of Rose’s hand around her wrist; their time together in the Medium had established these quiet reassurances for all four of them, for when speech was impossible or simply awkward. “There is no set canon.” Rose spoke as if addressing the anatomy of a strange, alien creature. “My inquiries into the matter, however, have been…inconclusive. For example, I am uncertain if anyone over the age of eight actually performs an alleged “makeover”…” Rose trailed off, taking in the look on Jade’s face. It was not petulant or scornful, but simply showing a tiny cloud of disappointment that Rose had blown into Jade’s sunny disposition. “…but, I, ah, did purchase some supplies, if you wanted to give it a try anyway…”
“Oh!” Jade said as she blinked, “Well, um, I know it is kind of childish but I guess I always wanted to try that girly sort of stuff. I mean if you do not want to it is fine though! I’m a guest here and mmhmm.”
Rose continued to gently press her finger against Jade’s lips. “I offered, did I not?” A hesitant second, Jade nodded, and earned her release. “Why don’t you gather the materials whilst I purloin a few of mother’s pins for putting your hair up.” The almost cartoonish enthusiasm Jade showed as she barreled towards Rose’s room was infectious; Rose found herself with a tiny smile on her face as she gracefully dodged between her mother’s invisible alarm laser grid and contemplated that she, too, had always wanted to do something silly and girly like this. At least once.
Only a few minutes later (Mother’s getting sloppy, Rose thought to herself.), the two girls found themselves seated on Rose’s throw pillows, legs set precariously on a broad sheet of wax paper and awkward silence again threatening to drape itself over the evening like a soiled, stale dryer sheet.
“I thought this would take longer.” Jade said as she kept her attention to the bright orange color gracing her toes. “Do you want to play a game?”
Rose considered the potential consequences. She then considered sitting still for an hour watching paint dry and grass grow all at once. “We’ll need to make some rules. For everyone’s safety.”
“...okay?” Jade looked confused. Good, Rose thought.
“The proposal is elegant in its simplicity.” Rose said, tapping a few note cards against her desk as she soaked in the atmosphere. It is as if the silly little sleepover had been transported to a smoky back room during the height of Cold War paranoia. “Herein both parties acknowledge a certain predisposition towards what might be described as competitive behavior when certain factors are involved...”
Junior Delegate Harley snorted into her mellonberry zinger juice, looking to the left as if reliving a few of the more intense moments in their relationship. Jade’s favorite remained one Christmas when they stayed up all night trying to catch Santa; the old man eluded her that year, but Jade had plenty of time to plan anew.
“…in other words, in order to keep this from becoming a senseless oneupsmanship contest of apocalyptic proportions, I propose a modification on the traditional canon.” Rose continued, crossing her arms and looking a bit pleased with herself.
“Is truth or dare really a matter of ‘canon’, Rose?” Jade asked innocently-a bit too innocently, a fertile mind might imagine. Look at those wide eyes, that slight underbite, the way she twirls her hair around her finger, all signs of a criminal genius! Rose chastised herself internally for her lack of preparation and the fatal mistake of underestimating Jade “Blackjack” Harley.
“Regardless!” Lalonde pressed on as though Jade had not exposed a flashing weak point in her grand scheme, “My proposition is as thus; since we will inevitably compete, make the game a competition to begin with. One asks the other a question, and the other has the choice of answering truthfully or submitting to whatever dare the questioner can manufacture. The asker may judge the answer insufficient, and the questioned may judge the dare too harsh; each truthfully answered question or successfully completed dare gains the party in question a point. The one with the most points wins.”
“But, um.” Perhaps sensing some of her companion’s internal struggle, Jade raised her hand as she spoke. “Rose, those are really nice rules and all, but how long should we go for? Otherwise it sort of defeats the purpose, don’t you think?”
Quickly, quickly, before she realizes you hadn’t thought of that! “Five rounds.” Rose took a moment to savor her cool under pressure and ignore the hint of triumph in Jade’s goofy smile. “Shall we?”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Jade bit her lower lip in concentration, feeling a bit like the girl that woke up late at the O.K. Corral.
“Scared?” Rose said, pulling out the unreasonably big guns.
“Rose!” Jade put her nose up, crossing her arms defiantly, “I am not that childish thank you very much! It’s not like I’m one of the boys, jeez!” An eye peeked open. “...lets do this thing!”
“Very well.” Just as planned, Rose reflected to herself, simply ignoring any inconvenient facts about her savoring the petty competition implying she was as childish as Jade in these matters. “Truth. Or. Dare.”
“Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.” Jade stalled for time, tapping her lip with her finger and weighing several abstractions of probability and behavioral analysis before recalling the revised rules. Of course Rose would still want to observe the proper formal ceremony of the thing, Jade thought with a roll of her eyes and a suppressed giddy giggle. “Truth!”
Rose paused to savor the theatrical feeling lovingly smothering the room, taking it like the bouquet of a fine wine. Well, a fine sparkling grape juice. “Tell me, Jade, did you ever use your gifts to get a…” Rose trailed off, looking away as though she were reluctant to even speak of such a vulgarity. “…peek at any of the young men under your care?”
Jade was a bit thrown by Rose going immediately for the big guns, and swerved back into a proper sitting position. “...I saw them all the time, Rose! Gosh.” Harley added a little smug pout to make her misunderstanding look more realistic.
“Nice try.” Rose said crisply, looking a little amused at Jade’s attempt at subterfuge. “I saw the flush. Out with it, young lady.”
“Hrmph!” Jade crossed her arms, considered her options, and realized Rose had her stuck. The only other option was to shed first blood, and grandpa would never forgive her slighting the family honor like that. “….once.” Jade could not help but deflate a little, focusing on her fingers in order to avoid withering under the palpable disapproval radiating from Rose. “By accident, really! I. I couldn’t sleep so I logged on to build up Dave’s apartment a bit because hey why not and the camera was in the bathroom and he was just getting out of the shower and forgot a towel I guess!” It all came out in a rush, the tingle of excitement over reliving the moment buried under an avalanche of shame and the fear of how the oh so very private Dave Strider would react to her unintentional voyeurism. “...please don’t tell.”
A few moments of silence, and Jade nearly jumped at the sensation of a soft, warm hand on her shoulder. “Jade, of course not.” Rose said, her smile having melted into something warm and kind. “I promise. ….though I hardly think he would blame you for something so innocent. Like you said, it was clearly an accident.”
“Yeah, heh, accident.” Jade managed, relief crashing into her like an overeager cartoon coyote. “Sorry, just, um.” Jade dared eye contact and found that just um seemed to have been understood. “...so it is my turn, right?”
Quick recovery, Rose thought, nestling back into her pillow. “The answer was…satisfactory.” Rose said as she set her hands against the tiny plastic table they were sharing. “I have braced myself. Fire at will.”
Jade’s lips quirked into a half smile that was entirely too sly for Rose’s comfort. “...who’s the last boy you had a dream about, Rose?”
These crude tactics were not unforeseen. “A young B.F. Skinner, whom had trapped me inside an elaborate maze but could not determine the proper sort of cheese to ensure my cooperation.”
“Oh my God you were a mouse?! Rose that is so cute I wait just a second!” Jade’s hands went to her hips in an authoritative strut. “I mean a dream! Like. Um. Embarrassing!”
“It was quite humiliating.” Rose seemed honestly confused but for the tiny smile on her face. “And I was a hedgehog.”
Something cold and cruel entered Jade’s eyes. “Fess up or take the dare train!”
“Do your worst.” Rose countered, confident that Jade Harley did not have a ‘worst’. Her smug satisfaction soured, however, as Rose realized Jade had shuffled off to retrieve some fell artifact from her carry on bag. Perhaps her confidence had been misplaced.
“Kiss.” Jade’s voice rang with a cold finality, “The. Bunny.” Said rabbit, a veteran of a thousand years of psychic wars, or at least a lost year in paradox space, moved jerkily, courtesy of Jade, who was also providing smooching noises. “Mwah mwah mwah!”
“Jade, we haven’t even eaten yet…” Rose protested, a little annoyed at the fact that Jade had added a familiar set of buck teeth to the ancient stuffed animal.
“The more you stall the worse it gets Lalonde!”
“You are relentless.” If Rose had a hat she would have been compelled to tip it. Instead she looked to her left, sighed, and quickly kissed the oil smudged rabbit on the cheek. “Mssr. Lapin.”
Jade kept her grim features for a whole second before, “Pfthehehehehehehehehehehehee!” she collapsed into a fit of giggles.
This would not do. Honor was at stake. “Have you ever used your…gifts for personal gain?” Rose began her assault with all the sympathy of a puritan at a bonfire.
“...um.” Jade stumbled mid-chortle, her face quickly flushing. “Does it count if I do it for the greater good?”
“Self-justification is irrelevant.” Rose proclaimed majestically.
“Dare.” Jade caved, screwing her eyes shut and waiting for the boom. Only it was more of a plunk, really, as Rose dropped an old plastic seeing eye ball onto a pillow, plugging it in and testing to see if the light worked.
“Make use of your fell talents to spy on a figure of personal import to the both of us.” Rose said with a horrible little sneer of triumph playing across her lips.
“...hah!” Jade cheered, punching the air and dragging herself to a sitting position. She wiggled her fingers over the alleged crystal ball, making spooky noises and throwing some glitter in the air. “Show me…Charles Egbert!” There was no safer target, Jade thought. A faint green glow emanated from the plastic ball, as an image superimposed itself over the cheap lightbulb. The rigid image of the most paternal man either girl knew made itself apparent, showing Mister Egbert sitting at his desk, working on some incredibly boring looking papers. The only thing out of order was the message taped to his back, which read, ‘Jade, spying is impolite.’ with a frowny face just after it.
“...it must be a coincidence.” Rose insisted in the face of the overwhelmingly obvious.
“Oh no!” Jade had a harder time fooling herself, wrapping her arms around her legs and looking sincerely terrified. “He’s gonna hate me now and throw me out on the street and I’ll get picked up for vagrancy and go to jail and Rose I don’t want to shiv anybody!”
A bit alarmed at her friend’s reaction, Rose scooted over, pulling the plug out with her toes while putting a hesitant arm around Jade. “There, there. I turned it off.”
“...sorry.” Jade spoke into Rose’s shoulder, humiliated about her lapse in control.
“...would you hate me if I admitted that everything went better than expected?” Rose attempted a smile, hoping to defuse the awkwardness a little with good old fashioned spite.
Jade laughed, shoving at Rose and wiping her eyes. “A little, butt! Okay, um.” Jade sucked on her teeth, trying not to look too pathetic when Rose moved back to her side of their little pillow table. “What’s one secret you’re keeping from everyone?!”
Rose frowned, because if she faltered here, Jade would be in the lead, which simply could not be allowed to happen. “...one moment.” Rose got up, shuffling off to her closet.
“Rose?” Jade said, beginning to worry that she had gone a little too far.
“Silence.” Rose commanded, walking back over with as much grim ceremony as she could muster while wearing pink pajamas and toe socks she knitted herself. The object was presented to Jade, already activated.
“Oh my gosh, you?!” Jade exclaimed after a quick glance and an instant recognition of the name on the Game Boy screen. ‘Zaz’, her brother’s online e-nemesis, was none other than Rose Lalonde! “I thought you hated those games though!”
“Yes, well.” Rose looked away, thinking of the best way to put it. “At first I took up more...primal entertainment so David would have a distraction. Simple curiosity led me to try the competitive options, and John’s reaction...”
Jade burst into giggles, remembering John’s reaction. Nothing enraged the boy more than a silent rival figure. “Are you going to tell him?!”
“...eventually, or so I planned.” Rose admitted, hemming and hawing a bit. “Are you?”
“Psh, no!” Jade motioned with her hand in some vague imitation of a sassy finger snap. “Its not like you’re hurting anyone and its nice seeing John forget that he thinks the world’s made of cardboard for a little bit.”
“Mm.” Rose managed in gratitude, looking away and forcing a certain thought out of her head. “Someday. I believe, however, this puts me at an advantage.”
Jade held up a finger to oppose this, re-counted in her head, and realized the depths of Lalonde’s treachery. “What?! Ooh...you! Fine, ask your worst!” Jade stuck her tongue out at her friend for good measure.
“As you wish.” Rose leaned forward to catch just the right dramatic lightning. “Name a boy you have done something...” Rose pretended to trail off, enjoying Jade’s sudden discomfort. “...how did you put it? Ah. Yes. Embarrassing with.”
“Um.” Jade swallowed, her cheeks quickly turning pink from the weight of Rose’s implication. “Not fair! ...well, there is what happened with John...?”
Suddenly Rose did not feel quite so smug, though she was unsure why. What business was it of hers what that stupid big headed pencil gnawing Neanderthal did? “...and what.” Rose said after giving Jade a good minute to continue, “Was that?”
“Oh! Sorry. Hehe.” Jade giggled in a demure manner that made Rose’s stomach turn, curling a strand of hair around her finger. “I think you and Dave were doing the Derse thing, and I was kinda feeling lonely so, well, John came over and told me this story about a man named Jed and his family? It was so nice of him to try so hard, even if it wasn’t very good, so I turned around and, well...” Jade trailed off, her damnable cheeks glowing at the memory.
Rose carefully released her grip on the pillow before it ripped, as she waited. “...and?!” She was merely impatient to get the game over with.
“...pooted.” Jade said with a perfectly straight face.
“You...”
“Oh gosh it was so humiliating!” Jade gushed, grinning at the thought of it, “John still says “Light a match!” whenever we have chili.”
“I.” So this, Rose thought, is what it felt like. “I see.”
“Sooo, that’s me ahead again, yeah?”
Rose counted to herself, realized what had happened, and could only respond one way. “You are a worthy adversary, Harley.”
“Hee!”
“No more leading questions?”
“Sure!”
“Very well. After you.” Rose decided she needed a moment to make sure she was centered.
Jade advanced on the conversation with gusto. “Okay! Did you ever stumble on something…” Jade gave what was very nearly a sly wink, “...embarrassing with those super seer senses of yours?”
“Copycat.”
“Thorough!”
“Several times.” Rose conceded, “I believe the worst of it was when I heard a labored, muffled sound from the closet and leapt into action. It took me a moment to realize what Mother and Mister Egbert may have been doing...”
“No!!” Jade exclaimed, abruptly on the edge of her seat.
“I cannot say for certain.” She was, Rose thought, a very satisfying audience. “He certainly was not holding her for ransom.”
“Hrm...” Jade tapped her chin.
Rose pressed on, “Do you miss anything from the game?”
“...my frogs.” Jade sobered up, looking at the ground. “It was...nice, how they needed me. Is that selfish?”
“Perhaps.” Rose mused, but quickly added, “Though it would be unnatural not to feel as such. So.” A smile. “Your only hope, Harley, is to shame me.”
“Okay!” Jade chirped and Rose felt ice water enter her stomach, “What was your favorite time in the game?”
This question did not loom so much as limp around the room like a dieing elephant, crashing through fine china and plastic warded furniture alike. Finally, Rose managed to say, “...dare.”
To say Jade was kind in victory would be a lie, but at least she was cheerful. “I’m going to need your computer and your pesterclient for a few minutes...”
---
John Egbert looked at his screen, the bottle of juice he was drinking, and was forced to again question if he was hallucinating or not.
TT: Sunlight Seer Rose Lalonde,
Watch yourself I’m no dumb blonde,
If my business you step in?,
The light of my wand’ll purge your sin!
---
“...did you have to draw a picture, too?” Rose asked, paling as the cartoonish image of her as a purple superhero danced along the screen.
“Yes.” Jade nodded seriously, “Want to see the design sheets? I was hoping we could make costumes for the boys too.”
“...sure.” Despite her best efforts, Rose couldn't force the tiny smile off of her face.